What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon preached on 8 November 2015

08/11/2015

We stood at the top of the top of the hill looking down the Clyde looking past Bowling and on towards Dumbarton.

No ships. No boats. The slight eeriness of the empty estuary.

“And that’s where the fire was” she said. “The VE day fire”. And over there – behind the house, that must be where the shelter was.

Earlier this year, I had taken her on a bit of a nostalgia trip. We went back to Clydebank where she grew up and had a look around the house in which her family had lived. It is still there, something which seems remarkable in itself.

“That must be where the shelter was”. Something about that statement made me start to do the sums in my head to work out how old she was. “But you were only a baby”, I said. You’d been evacuated anyway.

“No I hadn’t” she said. “I was there. I was in the shelter all night. I was in the shelter and mum, your grandmother held me all night as the bombs were falling. Oh yes, I was there. I was only evacuated to Kilmarnock after that, when the town couldn’t be lived in.”

I have always been aware that every congregation that I have ever worked in has had people in it who had first-hand experience of war – both recent and in the past. However, I’d somehow never managed to clock the fact that my mother had been there when the bombs were falling. Quite how I’ve made it to nearly 50 without knowing that, I don’t know. But sometimes stories about war come back long after the event and it isn’t unusual I guess to simply not talk about what had happened.

“Well, who else was there then?” I asked. (more…)

4 responses to “The SNP and Equal Marriage”

Indy

18/07/2012

I think the issue is that the SNP Government is going to authorise religious same sex marriages as well as civil ones.

It would be an obvious compromise to allow civil weddings but not religious ones – that seems to be the route the UK Govt will go down.

It would be tempting for the SG to do the same. It’s a neat solution – that way they could say there is no question of religious denominations being forced to perform same sex marriages. It will only be civil ceremonies.

And, let’s face it, although there are some religious denominationa which support same sex marriage – Unitarians, Quakers, Liberal Jews, Pagan Federation etc – how many Unitarians, Quakers, Liberal Jews, Pagans etc are actually out there? They are very much outnumbered by the Catholics, Muslims and fundamentalist Protestants aren’t they?

But for some reason the SG has decided to go for the option which allows religious as well as civil same sex marriages. We can only assume that, for them, that is actually an issue of principle, of support for religious freedom.

But it makes it more complicated doesn’t it? Because they have to find a way to protect the rights of religious denominations which wish to conduct same sex marriages while also protecting the rights of religious denominations who do not want to conduct same sex marriages. And do that in the context of legislation which protects religious rights, freedom of speech and equality which is not within their control.

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Lazarus

18/07/2012

Putting aside any issues of substance here, I’m not sure you’re being quite accurate in your interpretation of John Haldane’s Newsnicht appearance. He was careful to distinguish between civil partnerships and same sex marriage, saying that the latter had to be discussed within an understanding of the ‘common good’ (a discussion which the programme didn’t have time to allow). I’d be amazed if he’s changed his opposition to same sex marriage (expressed quite regularly in the media eg in the Beyond Belief programme here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b019rlng/Beyond_Belief_Same_Sex_Marriage/).

As to whether Haldane was criticizing the Cardinal -I suspect any interpretation along these lines would require quite a degree of cynicism (or wishful thinking!) given his previously highly supportive attitude (eg http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6707465.stm).

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Jaye Richards-Hill

20/07/2012

I met him when Ruth and I did the Big Questions earlier this year. Apparently, Haldane is an advisor to Pope Benedict….

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Erp

24/07/2012

There may not be many Unitarians, Quakers, Reform Jews in Scotland but there are a lot of Humanist weddings (I believe in Scotland in 2010 the number of weddings by Humanist celebrants exceeded the number of Catholic weddings) so they are the biggest group performing legally recognized opposite-sex marriages who would like to perform legally recognized same-sex marriages (as opposed to a ceremony after a same-sex marriage has been registered at the registry office).

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